Here’s a solitary daily-style strip in the middle of all this Full Color Page Madness, as Lith sneaks around on her own.
The original version of the strip had zero words at all! It was just the sequence of those four panels. And subsequently Eric Burns-White did this whole “You Had Me And You Lost Me” article about It’s Walky! where he said he’d finally given up on this quagmire of a final battle sequence and was quitting the comic because too much was going on and it was getting hard to care. (He eventually came back.) But I was a pissybaby about it and retroactively added incredibly purple prose over the whole thing, purposefully over-expositioning the shit out of it.
I decided, for this website’s run, to find something somewhere in the middle.
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I think that’s big of you to admit you were being a bit defensive, and I think this compromise version is the best of the three.
Same here. While the wordless panels is really good, I like the addition of minimal words in panel three. It reminds us what Lith is looking for.
I’m always afraid I’ve done something like that, but I never get feedback along those lines… maybe I’m doing okay? (though I’ve had several things clearly misunderstood, so… not COMPLETELY okay)
Also, Willis?
Never read reviews. Reviewers hate everything.
As a reviewer I used to watch long ago put it. No one comes here for me to tell them it’s good. You come to have me tell you what’s terrible.
I’d wondered what you thought of Burns’s review, but didn’t want to ask. Journalists interviewing subjects get to do that “Critic X said [something negative] about your work; care to comment?” thing, but for the rest of us that’s kind of rude. (Arguably, it’s rude when journalists do that too, but rightly or wrongly it’s become a convention with interviews.)
The old archive of this strip has both versions. The more wordy version reminds me of cheesy old superhero comics. This new version is better.
I think this new one is the best of the three. Eventually you would have got what is going on, but you’d have to stop and think about this 4 panel black-and-white in the middle of larger action, and with just dialogue in one panel you see Lith come back into the narrative to figure out what is going on then silently swoosh back out of it like a badass.
I don’t believe I’d ever seen or knew about the wordless version! When I first read through the archive in 2005, I only remember seeing the wordy one, which I always assumed was some specific, like, Transformers comic reference or something that I just wasn’t getting. Interesting! And I agree with the consensus that this new version is ideal.
Yeah, gonna hafta agree with the consensus so far that the in-between posted is the best iteration.
The wordless was definitely better than the admittedly HILARIOUS purple prose, but this is good because it reminds us what the hell is going on and why any of what we’re looking at matters without over-expositing.
Oh wow though. The purple prose one is vividly reminiscent to me of those Calvin and Hobbes sequences spoofing soap comics.
I thought you got replaced by Chris Claremont for a second.
In between is definitely better. I will admit the first time I read its Walky. I had no idea what was going on. It just seemed like something is happening and more stuff and I wasn’t sure what was going on or why suddenly people Walky could see the future and suddenly stuff happened.
I’m gonna chime in with those saying that the compromise version is best.
My main problem with the silent one is that, in panel 1, I see a Martian flying with a funny helmet (like maybe a leader helmet) NOT a crane picking up a decapitated martian head. And without that, the action of Panel 2 doesn’t make sense either (seems more like a ship with an angler-fish lure on the front).
So yeah, those thought bubbles, while less arty, do help a lot.
I liked the overwritten strip I remember first reading from the archives. Mostly because it seemed to imply a backstory similar to what you’ve just mentioned, and I thought that was funny. “You want words? I’ll GIVE you words!!”
Also, it actually gives some funny characterization to Lith, who previously was just kinda there.